Franz Beckenbauer, who won the soccer World Cup both as player and team coach and is referred to in Germany as the "Kaiser", is the highest-grossing marketing personality at the 2006 tournament.

Beckenbauer President of Germany's World Cup organising committee presents a fountain in the shape of a soccer ball in Munich.[filephoto]

Beckenbauer generated more than 20 million euros (US$25 million) worth of marketing spending after appearing in advertisements for Adidas AG, Telefonica SA's O2, Deutsche Postbank AG and brewer Erdinger, research company Thomson Media Control said. Runner-up Rudi Voeller, also a former German coach, generated less than half that amount with 9.7 million euros.

Beckenbauer, whose presence at almost every World Cup game is tracked by the German networks' cameras, has become nearly omnipresent on television by dribbling a ball at the Berlin Olympic Stadium for Postbank, sinking a wheat beer for Erdinger and examining his former World Cup champion teammates.

"His media presence is reaching enormous magnitude during the World Cup," Thomson said in a statement on its Web site. Beckenbauer also heads Germany's World Cup organizing committee.

Juergen Klinsmann, coach of the current German team, generated 6.8 million euros with World Cup-related advertising, Thomson Media said in the report today.